Related Press Releases

ProPublica: “It blows my mind — this is complete operational security incompetence,” said Joe Hall, the chief technologist for the Center for Democracy & Technology, an organization that promotes internet freedom. “You should consider all of that stuff in the hands of people who are clever enough to intercept someone’s email.”

Yahoo! News: In an Oct. 10 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland., Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a case to step back from what the tech industry generally sees as an advance in security: “warrant-proof” encryption on devices that even court-authorized investigators can’t unlock. But granting that seemingly innocuous request could start to carve giant holes into your phone’s security.

USA Today: Google on Tuesday rolled out a nasty-complicated but insanely secure version of its Google accounts aimed at “those who need it most,” such as journalists, politicians and activists. It’s not pretty but stands a good chance of keeping the bad guys out.

New York Times: State election officials, worried about the integrity of their voting systems, are pressing to make them more secure ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Reacting in large part to Russian efforts to hack the presidential election last year, a growing number of states are upgrading electoral databases and voting machines, and even adding cybersecurity experts to their election teams.

Newsweek: A new report breaks down the lessons learned at the DEF CON 25 hacking conference, which amounted to a concentrated attack—orchestrated in the name of public safety—on the programming and machinery used in U.S. elections. One of the authors of the report, Joseph Hall of the Center for Democracy & Technology, tweeted a warning against overinterpreting the scope of the threat, if not its urgency.

Bloomberg: The Trump administration is exploring ways to replace the use of Social Security numbers as the main method of assuring people’s identities in the wake of consumer credit agency Equifax Inc.’s massive data breach. Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, said one possibility could be giving individuals a private key, essentially a long cryptographic number that’s embedded in a “physical token” that then requires users to verify that the number belongs to them.

Detroit Free Press: According to legal and privacy experts, a DHS policy made public on Sept. 18 could send the country into uncharted territory when it comes to immigration protocol by targeting permanent residents and naturalized citizens for their online activities. Nuala O’Connor, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy & Technology, said that she is deeply concerned about the scope of inquiry given the Trump administration’s actions on immigration and that it’s uncertain how the policy will play out in practice.

Through a new grant from Democracy Fund, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) will conduct a two-year research project aimed at addressing key election cybersecurity issues, such as voter registration and campaign data management.

New York Times: A company called Clear is using fingerprints and iris scans to spare some passengers the first phase of the T.S.A.’s security airport screening process — the document-verification checkpoint and its line. Clear says it can speed fliers through checkpoints while maintaining tight security. But the rollout process has been slow — Clear is available only in some terminals at 24 domestic airports — an earlier iteration of the company had a data security issue.

Teen Vogue: “Internet access could be reduced to a cable package where users are forced to pay a toll to the ISP for access to specific websites or services,” said Ferras Vinh, policy counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).